PM identifies six priority areas for next fiscal

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has identified food and fertiliser subsidies, user charges, the horticulture mission and the accelerated power development and reform programme as priority issues for the coming fiscal.

Officials told Business Standard that the prime minister would review these issues on February 8. They said discussions would focus on keeping food and fertiliser subsidies at Rs 26,000 crore and Rs 16,000 crore, respectively.

"The government intends to phase out the subsidies in the long run by plateauing them off or stagnating them at the present level. So, while the subsidies will be the same as this year in rupee terms, they will be lower in the next fiscal if one were take into account a five per cent inflation," an official said.

The review will focus on devising a strategy to encourage more participation by states in imposing user charges.

"The issue had reached a dead-end despite incentives offered to states under accelerated irrigation benefits programme to encourage user charges," an official said.

Similarly, the review will consider ways to enhance the allocation for irrigation by at least Rs 2,000 crore in the next fiscal. "The total cost of implementing irrigation projects that are in the backlog is around Rs 90,000 crore," a Planning

Commission official said adding that the idea was to increase funding for the irrigation programme and fine-tune its guidelines. The meeting will also discuss whether fresh guidelines for the power programme be introduced in the next fiscal or not.

Officials said the review meeting will also consider setting up of marketing networks for the horticulture mission. "The idea is to divert crop production to horticulture to improve the agriculture-economy," an official said.